Pirates March by Penguins

Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, PA – It’s been a while since the Pirates last heard the music on the road. The Portland Pirates ended a 10-game road losing streak as they defeated the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins, 2-1 in front of 8,005 at the Wachovia Arena on Friday night.

The Pirates played the perfect road game. A methodical, keep-it-simple approach that allowed the Pirates to take a 1-0 on a goal from Joe Motzko after two periods of play.

“We prided ourselves with our play on the road in the last year so that was a frustrating stat,” said Pirates Head Coach Kevin Dineen. “You’d like to think that [our] effort was there. The effort was there in Hershey, we’d play some decent hockey at points, but it was good to see us play a nice all-around game from goalie-to-defense and power play. A lot of good things happened tonight.”

With Noah Welch serving two minutes for roughing, the Pirates gained the lead on the power play, something they hadn’t done in their last nine attempts on this road trip.

A nice pass play set up by Pirates’ defenseman Eric Weinrich and Aaron Rome allowed Motzko to walk in untouched. He fired a quick shot, picking the far top corner of Penguins’ goaltender Devan Dubnyk with 1:25 left in the period.

Both teams skated to a scoreless first period, but not without each having a quality chance to score. The Pirates had multiple chances including a breakaway attempt by Ryan Carter, which he shot wide and Aaron Rome firing a shot, deflecting off a group of bodies, hitting the post.

Sebastien Caron kept the score 0-0 for the Pirates making a highlight reel glove save on Noah Welch, a shot from the blueline.

In the third period, the intensity would increase as Wade Skolney was involved in his second and third fight against Simon Ferguson – just recalled from Augusta earlier in the day – and Greg Amadio respectively. Skolney and Amadio were ejected from the game as a result of the scrum which developed behind Caron.

At 18:48, Tim Brent put the Pirates up 2-0 as he sent a waffling shot from the right face-off circle, catching Dubnyk by surprise as the puck beat he through the five-hole.

With nine seconds left and the face-off to the left of Caron Pirates Head Coach Kevin Dineen called a time out, which proved to be costly to Caron. The Penguin won the face-off and threw the puck on net. J.F. Jacques fired one shot on net, which Caron stopped, but the rebound came back to him from the goal line which he threw back at the net and it just crossed the line with two seconds remaining on clock.

“I made a coaching mistake there [calling the timeout], it’s too bad we could get the shutout for Caron, he said. “That one falls on me.”
The goal ended Caron shutout bid, but he made 21 saves for the win, while Devan Dubnyk stopped 18 of 20 shots in the loss.

Earlier in the day, Ryan Shannon was recalled to the Anaheim Ducks from the Pirates. He will meet the Ducks in Dallas for there game tomorrow night. The Ducks also reassigned center Mark Hartigan to the Portland Pirates. He will meet the team in Norfolk and be in the line up for Saturday’s game.

“It’s a swap of two extremely talented players that bring a different dimension to your team,” said Dineen. “Hartigan is a guy so that’s so creative, he’s got a great shot, he’s a dynamic offensive player. He will be a welcome addition who will give a jolt of energy in that offensive role.”

During the warm-ups Joe Rullier left the ice after suffering a lower-body injury and will be revaluated tomorrow. He is currently listed as day-to-day.